


Europa: Monsters and Gods

by SandmanUlix



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Multi, Other, Tower of Babel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 20:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19027321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandmanUlix/pseuds/SandmanUlix
Summary: On the outskirts of the continent, in one of the more desolate regions in the land, there lies a great treasure. This treasure is the ancient temple which people dub  "The tower of Babel". It is a towering colossus of mysterious white sandstone pale as the moon, almost 6 stories high whose ever changing and labyrinthine depths along with its endless supply of materials render it a great tool for all rulers of the continent from the republican to aristocratic. It does however also posses many dangers, monsters and hostile civilizations who know of nothing more than the desire to destroy all human life. This is the story of one of the many men who were drawn to the tower and it's promises of riches and power.





	Europa: Monsters and Gods

**Author's Note:**

> First story ever. Will probably change many details as it progresses.

Prologue

 

Cologne

 

The break of dawn woke me with sudden hostility. The cold winds from which I had been previously sheltered by high walls and wooden windows now hounded me, as they pried open cracks in the windows and howled with a tempestuous fury. I attempted to shield myself from it so I turned groggily from one side to the other rocking in place as I attempted to recover my blanket but to no avail as the sun shone into my face directly. The first rays of morning nudged me just enough from my bed to place me near the edge, dangling an arms distance from the ground as I flailed my arms wildly to keep balance. I fell, and landed on the cold stone floor with a resounding thud. I let out a long groan of pain and annoyance and proceeded to get up and get dressed, whilst complaining about the almost providential nature of my misfortunes.

 

‘Seems there’s always something to ruin my day.’ I thought sullenly. I hurriedly strapped on a pair of brown pants and a blue tunic as I looked around for my cloak. I glanced around the room seeing swords, books, shields with my chainmail simply languishing on my great axe. I grit my teeth in anger as I remember that I would need to be fully equipped for today’s lecture, even though I would not be participating. I changed quickly, almost forgetting my chainmail in my hurried state. Just as I put on my boots and belt I hear the tolling of the bells signaling that a lecture is about to begin.

 

I made my way down the cold stone corridors passing the gardens of the monastery, glancing at its’ great towering oak. Its great shade peered majestically over the students black habits and the ancient scrolls they held with a silent sort of acknowledgment and familiarity. The tree made a great place for reading, but not during the day when so many used it as a supposed romantic setting. The vitae trees next to them glowed an ethereal purple color in the pale morning light, but as beautiful as it was its dim glow also served to make all the students nervous with the symbolic meaning of having a gift of the Emperor on full display. Protected they are, but not forever as many among the older faculty know and dread as each year passes. And the emperor becomes older, and the kingdom with him. His colonies grow bolder and his subjects’ desire to assert themselves becomes an ever increasing risk for the old monarch.

 

I pass by two students dressed in black monk’s attires, with the vestiges of monastic service abundant on their persons as their necks craned at the imaginary weight of the metallic chains they no longer wore. They snickered aloud as they looked at me and my concealed soldier’s uniform, whose own metallic chains clinked together over my traveler’s cloak.

 

‘They’re not wrong to laugh.’ I think to myself, as I feel my chainmail under my moss green robe. Great monasteries such as these educated only nobles’ sons, with futures in the clergy or the occasional pious (rich) peasant. A soldier in the monastery was already a hilarious thought in its own right but a soldier attending classes was almost as hilarious as a camel in the Ulpian highlands. I actually knew those students, not in the traditional sense god forbid but I had seen them many times before in the same hallways. Then they had laughed more loudly than they did now as among the academics my presence stopped being a novel oddity and more of the usual monotonous sights that could be seen on campus. Like drunken fistfights or duels for honor. That last thought I considered briefly as I walked into the tourney room or gymnasium as it was actually referred to. 

 

Now Professor Julius Severus would be holding the high tower combat lessons, the last ones for the next month. And soon after graduates in the military branches of the academy would be obtaining their military ranks and be sent to lead their own expeditions into the tower. 

 

‘The day could not come any sooner’ I thought with relief. Professor Julius had always been a strict man and grouchy as a result of his old age, though still considered young by the academies standards. He would likely avoid the mistake of giving out undeserved rankings to greenhorns with no talent. 

 

’It’s already insane they give combat positions to men who have never seen the nasty sight.’ Most would be completing testing for the material they had used until now, with varying success. Alexander’s conquests, Charlemagne’s campaigns, Temujin’s biography, and more of the usual with the occasional dueling manual whose effectiveness they would be testing on the field. There were however different cases such as mine where combat experience was not an issue. I had already taken the tests receiving an average overall score, meaning that all that was keeping me from the field was now the evaluation of my field report from the last war. Truth be told I was a bit anxious to receive it, but confidence in the truth of my words reassured me. No matter what some upstart noble thought, the words of a senior officer weighed more than those of any so called “professor”. All that was really left to me was to finish todays’ classes and start packing.

 

I entered the courtyard where rows of students, two by two awaited to take the physical portion of their exams. Their opponents were veterans of many battles on the glorious field of the tear soaked gymnasium, but equipped only to beat children who had never held swords before. With long and dull wooden swords, padded shields and gambesons for each, what they hoped to teach the students was beyond me. Though in all fairness there were a few exceptions among the fools preparing for their fights, which was not saying much. A careful fighter here, a light footed swordsman there, but not much else. 

 

I sat on the benches away from the teachers as to look at the action in peace whilst not worrying about being bothered about my prayers or cleaning duty. I relaxed in my seat as the first contestants took center stage, facing each other from opposite sides of the ring. 

 

Four students stood across two grown men, staring one another down anxiously but for entirely different reasons. The students because they were terrified of being killed by these overgrown sacks of fat and padding, and said sacks of fat because they were terrified of killing a nobles son and in turn being skinned alive for such impudence. Their reciprocal sense of dread and anxiety showed in the desperate way they gripped their shields and the distant almost indifferent way they held their swords, more scared of the retaliation that any sort of aggression would have caused than seeing somebody hurt. Of the students, only two looked as if they had any sort of experience gripping anything longer than a quill, their calloused hands twitching around the hilt of their blades.

 

Said pair of students were peasants by the looks of them. Two brothers, one younger and well kept, almost 15 by the look of him with a fair face and pale blonde hair a shade lighter than his brothers, and the older brother built like a bull and dirty with soil in his hair and his scruff. Their rough faces tanned under the disapproving glare of the sun, coarse dirty blonde hair unkempt and disheveled from lack of grooming, broad chests built from years of toil in the fields though the younger one looked much more lanky, all which made them quite the sight standing beside those rich children with their pale skin and unworked hands.

 

The fight was over very quickly. The noble’s sons were running from the field in minutes and the peasants managed to claw their way to a victory by tripping their opponent up with a correctly timed swipe.

 

With the tourney over and done with, I packed my bags and left for Majarit which was the only guild sponsored town that the southern university had any affiliation with. I had no one to take with me sadly enough, most adventurers are expected to traverse the first floors solo and then take up a party when possible. Though coming from the southern university brought with it a great advantage, namely recognition in the eyes of the guild which when considering who held the monopoly on adventuring was quite the head start. Though the reputation did not really help with party forming sadly enough. 

 

Parties had become more of an empty political unit in recent times, which party you belonged to did not matter as much as who funded you. Nobles loved this as with minimal funding they could expect great results: riches, material and experience for their men. As for the poor saps who actually founded their own parties? They could expect to be left in the dust of the more experienced, better equipped and better led noble parties. A sad reality but not much for a soldier to do than finish a few quests and hope to get accepted into a party.

 

I got on a carriage leaving on the meadow trail straight through the villages, leaned back and took in the rosy evening glow. How ethereally the moons peered over everything, glowing with their soft pale lights, one boney white and the other faint blue. Some of the preachers had said that the moons were the Gods way of watching over us, of our deeds, good and bad. It was probably meant to scare us as children and many a child lost sleep hearing that the sky was always watching them but I always found comfort in it somehow. How in the cold isolation of reality we could still find a proper connection, even with something immaterial. With that thought in mind I drifted to a sleepless sleep as images of the towers doors which I had seen so many times before in textbooks now towered above me with hostile intent. 

 

The carriage driver woke me with a smack on the head as we neared the city, its high rising, worn out looking gates open to us with a sort of mercantile wink. Majarit was a great trading hub on the outskirts of the central dune in which the tower was shrouded. There were 4 like it on every side, Jarns’ Gard in the North, Kondarr in the west and Ravodinostok in the east. It was said that if one got lost in the dune they could simply walk in any direction and reach the city they had come from.

 

Majarit was home to many peoples, many goods but most importantly many guilds and that mattered much more than any Frankincense or Kashmir. The guilds were like both the guiding lantern and guiding hand for adventurers: giving out quests, negotiating treaties between parties and serving as a centralized bank where they could store their goods. The one I went to was near a pub and a smithy, quite the invaluable position they had with drunks on one hand and weapon suppliers on the other. A setup for much cooperation and prosperity for the near future. The building itself was not very tall, one story in total which for a guildhall was very short. 

 

Nevertheless I went inside and took a look at the bulletin board. There were requests for Minotaur horns, fire salamander skin, hell there was even a training quest available which asked that an adventurer show up an “prove” themselves able of doing a days’ work on a farm. I took a flyer which said: “Three Hecate hound’s maws. A Frank for each.” A frank was worth more than a 10 gilderns, and for something so easy to obtain like hound’s maws? ‘Childs play.’ That’s what I thought till I read the rest of it. “-from the 3rd floor.” Ah, there it was. No sane man would have given up that much money so easily. The request was a bit demanding but not impossible and definitely a good deal, it was recent too, only a day or two old. I took it against my better judgement and walked up to the register. There I was given my tag and told the time I would have to complete the quest before it was re-applied. I had a week and six days’ time to complete it and report back, plenty of time for a bit of foraging as well. With everything prepared I walked to the towers door and went in.

…

It was dark. The first floor was very well lit with torches and a few men ran something akin to a monster themed circus with Goblins on leashes chasing after Nussadders, furry little snakes with buck teeth instead of fangs. It all looked very entertaining but I had no time to waste and walked deeper into the cave past the entrance until I reached a staircase going up having thankfully avoided contact with any monsters.

 

The second floor illuminated was by crystals and contained a few pools of water which housed a few creatures I could not make out at first but later realized were undines, they were apparently sleeping (luckily) and so I managed to slip by them and find another staircase which led to the third floor.

 

The third floor, it was almost pitch black. I had already seen a few monsters on my way, an undine by the pools, a few crows of Caron and a one-eyed hound of Hecate. The hound on this floor had been unkempt, coarse black fur dirty with blood and mud, its yellow teeth and dull black eyes had me on guard immediately. I stayed far away and provoked it by slamming my sword on my shield and it took the bait immediately as it charged at me full speed. My right hand and my sword with it came up in a short jab, and judging by the squelch of flesh, and spritz of blood, it hit its mark. The beast was dead at my feet and I had not even had to move one step.

 

But here only a few steps deeper in the hall, in the total darkness where everything was out of proportion with walls overarching one another, even the hounds were uncharacteristically more vicious. The one I was now face to face with was at half my height but much bulkier, it’s teeth were pale and shone from the light of my lantern, it’s eyes were a sinister yellow and it’s fur was pitch black, so much so that I had not even registered the beast as I had thought it a trick of the light, for I could not see its body. 

 

I had prepared for many things but for the pure ferocity and out of proportion strength this hound displayed I could never have been prepared. I tried to fight back and for that I got my shield torn to shreds before my eyes as the hound lost interest in me having found itself a new plaything. At that moment I did the only thing I could think of. I ran.

 

Even in my shame of fleeing from a brainless mutt, it seemed God would not give me respite. My foot sunk in a sudden depression in the granite floor, and I fell with a thud. I was now on my back, my ankle sprained, the air knocked out from my lungs and the demonic howl of the hound echoing behind me. I was resigned to my fate but as luck would have it my lantern shone a part of the wall which looked like a crack. In the spur of the moment I dragged myself to it and dove in.

 

Inside everything was red. Red, a gory sticky dripping red. A disgustingly metallic tangy red. It looked like the walls themselves were made of flesh and sinew. But I had no way of taking the horror in fully though every detail seemed to burrow into my skull in those last few moments. I slipped and slid down the gaping maw of the ghastly crevice. I slipped and slid till I very well thought this would be the entire duration of my life here. That is until I hit upon the end of this hellish ride, a sudden drop that had my heart stop. Abysmal void was what I could see, nothing else could come close to describing it. The pure, vast emptiness filled with promise and uneasiness.

 

I could no longer hear, see or feel anything. And there the chapter of my life ended.


End file.
